Cohen Bolsters Commitment to Downtown with Lease
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The commitment of Cohen & Co. to downtown Youngstown has been reinforced with a long-term lease with the Ohio One Corp. to remain in the Commerce Building.
Ohio One is in midst of renovating and expanding the office space of the public accounting firm on the fourth floor of the five-story structure on East Federal Street.
There, workmen from Alex Downie & Sons Co. are taking the 6,000 square feet Cohen occupies and enlarging that space to 8,100 feet, which includes the conference rooms of the former Youngstown Club.
The additional space will allow the office to hire up to eight more accountants.
The renovations will provide much more light as the interior decorator’s plans take advantage of the large windows to illuminate both the offices along the outside walls and the interior cubicles, as Frank Dixon and Rick Schiraldi demonstrated during a tour of the construction.
The two are senior partners of the firm, headquartered in Cleveland, founded by Youngstown native Ron Cohen. The regional firm has 128 certified public accountants. Dixon has been with Cohen 34 years, Schiraldi 37.
The Youngstown office serves companies in western Pennsylvania and Columbiana County as well as the Mahoning Valley.
How to adapt to the additional light is a concern of the senior partners and Rich Mills, president and CEO of Ohio One Corp., their landlord. Dixon and Schiraldi have been discussing with Mills whether the curtains in the windows should be black or white to regulate the sunlight.
The curtains could end up with a white side facing out, a black side facing the occupants.
Glass walls will define the cubicles beyond the offices along the outside walls. And glass will be the material of the inside walls of those offices that face the cubicles. So Schiraldi’s assurance of “transparency” for the suite of offices rings true.
“We’ll have nicer cubes and a whole lot less offices,” Schiraldi says. “The cubes will be closer to the windows. We’ll have a brighter, younger and more transparent [environment] that promotes more collaboration.”
New flooring covered with brand-new carpet will lie beneath the new layout. The old carpet had gathered in spots and the heavily traveled areas showed the wear while the areas with the least pedestrian traffic had remained like new.
The suite of offices will have a new color scheme as the inside walls are repainted.
Carved into the new layout is a larger meeting room that can accommodate the entire staff and a newer and better-equipped lunchroom that promotes more healthful diets. “As we’ve changed the menus,” Schiraldi says, ”we’re offering more salads and cut down on sodas in favor of more juices and more fruit.”
The lobby, where receptionist Melissa Wix answers the telephones and greets visitors, will remain intact. “And we’ve kept the old folding doors,” Dixon says.
Dixon and Schiraldi joined Cohen & Co. when its offices were in the Wick Building. Their involvement in the resurrection of the downtown -- volunteering to serve on the committees and organizations that have worked for its rebirth -- reflects a huge commitment of their time. Schiraldi, for example, serves on the boards of the Youngstown Central Area Community Improvement Corp. and Youngstown Business Incubator.
When Cohen moved its offices to the Commerce Building in 1995, when the downtown was all but deserted and other professional offices were moving to the suburbs, Schiraldi and Dixon decided to stay. As their staff grew and the office needed more space, “Frank and I never even thought about it [moving to the suburbs],” Schiraldi says.
“We won’t abandon the downtown,” Dixon adds.
The closing of the Youngstown Club prompted Dixon and Schiraldi to enter discussions with Mills about expanding into some of that space. “We talked about it nine months,” Mills says, “and I couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome.”
Also undergoing remodeling in the Commerce Building are the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley and the Central Electric Inspection Bureau. The foundation and Central Electric, which performs electrical inspections for Youngstown and Mahoning County, are exchanging suites. The trade will provide Central Electric with more room in the atrium level to conduct classes and additional private offices, Mills says.
In addition, Central Electric has extended its lease.
Mills says he’s been meeting with William G. Barth & Associates CPAs, which has its offices on the third floor, about renewing its lease.
As for the fifth floor, Mills is in discussions with two parties interested in developing the former Youngstown Club into a banquet hall with meeting rooms. He thinks it unlikely the space could be a restaurant open five, six or seven days a week. With the rebirth of the downtown, though, he does see a restaurateur/banquet hall owner offering meals before Youngstown Symphony concerts and events at the Covelli Centre.
“We’ve been working with [commercial real estate broker] Steve Platz,” Mills relates, about redeveloping and reopening the fifth floor. “We really have stabilized that building long-term.”
Pictured: Cohen & Co. senior partners Frank Dixon and Rick Schiraldi say they are committed to staying downtown.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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